Social and Professional Networks

Supporting Microenterprise in Humanitarian Programming: Clan Network and Business Performance in Somalia

This projects seeks to understand the medium-term impacts of unconditional transfers on enterprise performance and how this varies by clan network.

Research Project
1 Jul 2019

Identifying Productivity Spillovers Using the Structure of Production Networks

Despite the importance of agglomeration externalities in theoretical work, evidence for their nature, scale, and scope remains elusive, particularly in developing countries.

Working Paper
1 Dec 2018

Interfirm Relationships and Business Performance

In this paper published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Cai and Szeidl (2018) organized business associations for the owner-managers of young Chinese firms to study the effect of business networks on firm performance.

Journal Article
1 Aug 2018

Social Origins of Dictatorship: Elite Networks and Political Transitions in Haiti

Existing theories of democratic reversals emphasize that economic incentives should determine when elites resist democracy. Naidu, Robinson and Young (2017) argue that the capacity to organize coups against democracy is also important, and is shaped by the structure of the social network.

Research Note
13 Jun 2017

Optimizing Network Referrals to Identify and Recruit Creditworthy Entrepreneurs

Microfinance lenders make limited credit offers because of operational challenges of extensive screening and selection process. We study if optimizing a referral protocol can be used to recruit good entrepreneurs and thus increase access to credit.

Research Note
27 Feb 2017

Virtual Social Networks and Entrepreneurship in Low-Income Countries: A Randomized Controlled Experiment in Ghana

This project aims to test whether poor social networks are a key factor limiting the rise of entrepreneurial behaviour in rural areas of low-income countries.

Research Project
15 Dec 2016

Social Origins of Dictatorships: Elite Networks and Political Transitions in Haiti

Existing theories of coups against democracy emphasize that elite incentives to mount a coup depend on the threat that democracy represents to them and what they stand to gain from dictatorship.

Working Paper
1 Nov 2016

Interfirm Relationship and Business Performance

Regular meetings between managers of young Chinese firms substantially improved firm performance. Channels included learning from peers and new supplier-client matches. This research note also discusses the project, "Finance and Networks in China".

Research Note
24 Oct 2016

Kinship Taxation in the Lab and in the Field: Constraint on Microenterprise Growth?

Developing country entrepreneurs often face family pressure to share income. This pressure, a “kinship tax”, can discourage the most able entrepreneurs from expanding their firms.

Research Note
20 Oct 2016

The Value of Face-to-Face: Travel and the Information Costs of Trade

Distance between buyers and sellers can create information problems that pose a barrier to trade.

Research Note
15 Sep 2016

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